This is the top three AoS lists for Vault Wars 2026 that took place in the US between the 24th and 25th of October 2026. It saw 39 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.

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The Top Three AoS Lists

Slaves to Darkness
Darkoath Horde
General’s Handbook 2026-27
Drops: 4
Spell Lore – Lore of the Damned
Manifestation Lore – Primal Energy (10 Points)
Battle Tactics Cards: Blazing Onslaught and Burning for Vengeance

General’s Regiment
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (180)
• General
• Deathmonger
• Darkflame Pendant
Chaos Chosen (510)
• Reinforced
• The Dread Banner
• Brand of Apoplexy
Darkoath Wilderfiend (120)
Darkoath Wilderfiend (120)
Mindstealer Sphiranx (140)

Regiment 1
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)

Regiment 2
Gunnar Brand (180)
Singri Brand
The Oathsworn Kin

Regiment 3
Darkoath Chieftain (80)
Darkoath Savagers (180)
• Reinforced
Darkoath Savagers (180)
• Reinforced
Darkoath Savagers (180)
• Reinforced

Faction Terrain
Nexus Chaotica

Dillon Corcoran: So this is a list that started out as a concept: how can I best meld the Darkoath and heavy metal sides of the book together to make one big happy pile of violence? Everything in this list has a very specific primary job and 1-2 secondary jobs after the pile of violence makes contact. The newly reinforceable Savagers are incredibly efficient secondary hammers and space buyers. Their new and improved ward (now just requiring an objective not in friendly territory) is uber valuable, so they’re running for it as early as possibly to buy time for Gunnar/Singri to rack up fury levels. 10 Chosen with no commands allowed already have good output, but at damage 3 they can legitimately end a game in one combat phase. The Sphinx is there solely to provide protection for the Chosen to reach that win condition; very few things want to take that fight if they can be hit with a strikes last on their own turn. The new and vastly improved Sorcerer Lord is there to support the Chosen with handy wards, anything else he manages is a lovely bonus.

Those parts are fairly obvious to any opponent when they start deploying. What tends to fly under the radar are the Wilderfiends and Karkadrak Lord. The fiends are unbelievably effective units in so many ways. 9 wounds on a 5+/5++ is already a nuisance to remove, but add on their lasers opening up step one of Blazing Onslaught, command denial tech, and a very damaging if swingy profile and they can be hard carry pieces. The Karkadrak meanwhile has two main jobs: create potent counter charge threats either for himself or for the Chosen brick with his once per game Drive the Legions Forward, and to then ascend to demon princedom. Between Death Monger and Eruption of Fury, he’s getting 3d3 ascension points when I choose to send him (with a further d3 if he’s on a well chosen objective). The Dark Flame Pendant means that he is remarkably difficult to shift when target selection is on point as well (he ascended in 4 of 5 games on this run).

The list plays like a death army in many ways with the Wilderfiends and Savagers returning to the field at half strength from the Darkoath Horde battle formation to pressure backfield objective and unsupported heroes. The ability to drop units as close as 3 inches away from enemy units is insanely powerful, and often means recurred Savagers immediately show up on board edge objectives to regain their ward. There are a lot of peripheral points shifts possible in the build to tailor it more towards a specific style/what models you specifically like more. The Darkoath and heavy metal sides of the book complement each other very well under the current ruleset, and I’d argue the book’s strongest play style is in this mixing. Slaves as a whole has so many viable paths open to it and sits at a great spot in the wider meta. I’m looking forward to diving further into this style. As a shameless self plug, my buddies and I will be talking about this list and this event in greater depth on our War Daddies podcast on YouTube in next week or so!

Soulblight Gravelords
Bacchanal of Blood
General’s Handbook 2026-27
Drops: 2
Spell Lore – Lore of Undeath
Manifestation Lore – Primal Energy (10 Points)
Battle Tactic Cards: Blazing Onslaught, Burning for Vengeance

General’s Regiment
Prince Vhordrai (450)
• General
Askurgan Trueblades (150)
Blood Knights (420)
• Reinforced
Blood Knights (420)
• Reinforced
Fell Bats (90)

Regiment 1
Vampire Lord on Nightmare Steed (190)
• Lash of the Sire – (20) Points
• Shard of Night
Deathrattle Skeletons (100)
• The Empty Graveyard – (10) Points
Revenant Draconith (170)

Faction Terrain
Cursed Sepulchre

Daniel Patterson: This was my first GT with Soulblight Gravelords (SBG), and I used a lot of my tried-and-true experience with Slaves to Darkness (STD) to build and pilot this aggressive 2-drop built around Prince Vhordrai, two reinforced units of Blood Knights (BKs), a Vampire Lord on Nightmare Steed (VLONS), and some support/scoring units. This gave me a whole lot of fast, hard-hitting vampire cavalry that can run people over, though I didn’t actually get any crushing doubles to capitalize on this event. The idea is pretty simple: hit something, kill something, and Power Through back toward Vhordrai if I didn’t full send him in too, then power up the BKs with one of Vhordrai’s end-of-turn +1 Damage/+1 Attack/+2 Movement buffs until the end of the game. Notably, once a unit of Blood Knights got the +1 Damage buff, they could be used as an effective anvil, having Damage 2 even if they don’t charge. Luckily for this event, I dodged all the alpha-strike lists that could have pinned my Blood Knights and was mostly against heavy infantry armies, which gave my knights plenty of opportunities to do what they do best as 3 HP cavalry with native anti-infantry rend. Here’s a look at my matchups round by round:

(1) Kruleboyz (KB) — Win: Reinforced Gutrippaz and Monsta-killaz. This should have been a nightmare matchup with KB’s ability to turn off Charge +1 Damage and hand out Strikes-Last, but my opponent moved up too aggressively Top of 1 and I was able to full send Bot of 1. Vhordrai, Blood Knights (BKs), and the Trueblades were able to engage the Gutrippaz on one flank, while my other unit of BKs was able to connect its charge into a manifestation directly in front of the Monsta-killaz as my bats sacrificed themselves to stop his vulture from countercharging them. The manifestation let my BKs on their own flank avoid the KB debuffs and activate first to lift the Crit Mortals on 5s buffed Monsta-killaz. My other unit of BKs got hit with both debuffs, but with the help of a Strikes-First Vhordrai and a 4+ to make the Gutrippaz fight last from the Trueblades, that unit was able to kill a foot hero, power up from Vhordrai, and Power Through at the end of the turn. After this successful alpha, all that was left was the clean-up.

(2) Ogor Mawtribes — Win: Reinforced Gluttons and Ironguts with Kragnos. Similar to Round 1, this match was all about the successful alpha-strike. I used my faction terrain, Trueblades, Fell Bats, and Skeletons to screen in case he used Kragnos’ 3D6 charge to alpha me and set up for the counterpunch. Top of 1, my opponent castled up in the center with Kragnos waiting to countercharge on a flank. I crashed in Bot of 1 with the Fell Bats pinning the Ironguts, a unit of Blood Knights (BKs) engaging the Gluttons, and a Strikes-First Vhordrai just barely reaching Kragnos with his combat ability’s extra pile-in after Kragnos redeployed closer to my deep-striking Draconith behind him. Vhordrai put significant damage into Kragnos, who had to swing to kill the Draconith, allowing Vhordrai to finish him with Fury Dice attacks, emerging uninjured. The BKs used All-out Attack and just barely lifted the Gluttons on 2/2/Rend 3 from VLONS/Damage 2. Top of 2, he was able to engage the buffed-up BKs with his Ironguts, but the rest of my army was able to clean up.

(3) Maggotkin of Nurgle — Win: Reinforced Plaguebearers and Rotswords with Rotigus. This was a very close game where I was helped significantly by the battleplan, Treacherous Ground, which caused my opponent to split his castle and let me avoid the Rotswords until I was able to power up one unit of Blood Knights (BKs) to carry me through. Initially, one unit of BKs was able to engage Gutrot Spume and the Plaguebearers, killing Gutrot Spume and getting back to Vhordrai for +1 Damage after using Power Through off of his Plaguebearers. I was eventually able to re-engage these buffed-up BKs and the VLONS into the remaining Plaguebearers and Rotigus, just barely lifting Rotigus through All-out Defense, ending his aura of no healing and unlocking my native end-of-turn vampire healing from the Bacchanal of Blood battle formation to help negate the stacking disease damage Nurgle is known for. I lost Vhordrai in the grind, but by the time my buffed BKs came to deal with the Rotswords on the other side of the board, they had +1 Damage and +1 Attack with Rend 3 from my VLONS.

(4) Slaves to Darkness — Loss: 60 Darkoath Savagers, 2 Wilderfiends, and 10 Chaos Chosen. This was a close one! My opponent set up his legion of Darkoath but left a lane for his Chosen to countercharge when I brought one unit of Blood Knights (BKs) in to kill some Savagers and a foot hero, then Power Through back for the Vhordrai buff. I didn’t think the Chosen would actually charge because he chose to Khorne Mark and buff his Savagers, while his Chosen had the +1 Damage enhancement after 7 Fury. I would also get to activate into the Chosen first with my charging BKs. He risked it and sent them in anyway because he had gotten the 5+ Ward. My BKs killed (7/10) Chosen, as he was also out of CP from the countercharge, but his Dread Banner enhancement denying commands on anything in combat with the Chosen stopped me from being able to Power Through back to Vhordrai for the buff. On his next turn, my BKs pinned him but not much else. My Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws spiked later to finish off his Chosen, but in a pivotal turn, his Wilderfiend that I was trying to score the Blazing 1 tactic off of spiked and killed Vhordrai to seal the game. My forces eventually got whittled down by the Darkoath horde, ironic as an SBG army, but he was built for more recursion than I was, as he could bring the reinforced Savagers or a Wilderfiend back for a Command Point with his Darkoath battle formation.

(5) Nighthaunt — Win: Reinforced Bladegheists, Harridans, two MSU Pyregheists, and Lady Olynder. The most important thing in this game was to space my units so that my Blood Knights (BKs) wouldn’t get pinned by all his reinforced infantry blocks before they could get buffed up. He was a 2-drop as well and made me go first. I was able to send a unit of BKs in to kill a unit of Pyregheists, then Power Through off of the Bladegheists to get the Vhordrai +1 Damage buff and set them up as an anvil on one side of my castle. The other side was Vhordrai himself, Trueblades in cover to avoid his shooting, and Skeletons. He crashed in on his turn, and my buffed Blood Knights held well against his Harridans while his Bladegheists killed most of the Trueblades, damaged Vhordrai, and used his enhancement on the Bladegheists to move them out of combat after fighting. On my next turn, I was able to crash in with my other unit of BKs into his remaining Bladegheists, but was unable to Power Through due to his faction terrain’s no-commands aura. Eventually, my anvil Blood Knights won the center, and we fought around the edges for objectives for a close finish. Overall, I couldn’t be happier with how my Rule of Cool SBG list performed, letting me bring over my aggressive STD playstyle while enjoying the added flexibility of SBG’s fast scoring potential and recursion. This army definitely has some tough matchups, but when the Blood Knights get buffed and start rolling, there’s not much that can stand against them, and it’s an absolute blast to play!

Soulblight Gravelords
Bacchanal of Blood
General’s Handbook 2026-27
Drops: 2
Spell Lore – Lore of Undeath
Manifestation Lore – Manifestations of the Grave
Battle Tactic Cards: Siege of Ashes, Burning for Vengeance

General’s Regiment
Prince Vhordrai (450)
• General
Blood Knights (420)
• Reinforced
Blood Knights (420)
• Reinforced
Vargheists (120)
Vargheists (120)

Regiment 1
Vampire Lord on Nightmare Steed (170)
• Shard of Night
• Immortal Ego
Dire Wolves (150)
Dire Wolves (150)

Faction Terrain
Cursed Sepulchre

Nighthaunt
Death Stalkers
General’s Handbook 2026-27
Drops: 4
Wounds: 129
Spell Lore – Lore of the Underworlds
Manifestation Lore – Infernal Sorceries

Battle Tactic Cards: Legend of the Parch, Blazing Onslaught

General’s Regiment
Lady Olynder, Mortarch of Grief (320)
– General
Myrmourn Banshees (200)
– Reinforced
Chainghasts (90)

Regiment 1
Krulghast Cruciator (150)
– Shadowy Aura

Regiment 2
Lord Vitriolic (120)
– Lightshard of the Harvest Moon
Pyregheists (180)
Pyregheists (180)
Dreadscythe Harridans (380)
– Reinforced
– Cowards and Deserters (10)

Faction Terrain
Nexus of Grief

Regiments of Renown
Karahtet’s Siege Breaker (360)
Mortisan Ossifector
Mortek Crawler

Jimmy Rudloff: Excited to be talking about my first love, Nighthaunt! Was very happy to go (4-1) with an army that (based on stats) has been struggling of late. GENERAL ARMY THOUGHTS: NH has been in a weird place since their new book. It very much feels like the army is STILL paying for its sins from 3rd edition, 4th index, and Pyregheist spam. The army has so many tools, yet it can be difficult to get all of the tools to work together. Some people describe it as a control army, but it really feels like its identity is just a blob of wounds that always lives longer than it should because of wards and rage dice. Fun-ish army in its current state, but not easy to pilot. Every NH game vs. a good pilot is going to be super close in score, with razor-thin margins to victory.

THE LIST: I picked the new subfaction, Death Stalkers. It’s now a once-per-turn +1 rend to one target (‘condemned’), though you can’t choose any new targets if a unit already has the condemned debuff on the battlefield. This doesn’t fix every issue with NH, but it definitely helps! My list has Lady O and Krulghast… like seemingly 95% of lists out there. Lady O’s defensive abilities to only be hit/wounded on 5s/6s are wild and swingy. She tanked an obscene number of high-damage units (sorry Kurnoth…), but she also just died to incidental (accidental) damage in two games. Her spell wins games, and I forgot to cast it in my loss. Krulghast is the GOAT. In NH with wards and rage dice, ignoring 1 damage per phase is just incredible. I also gave him the shadowy aura to make it awkward for shooting-heavy armies. Definitely recommend Shadowy Aura if that is what the meta is turning towards. Lastly, the new and improved Lord Vit. The fact that Nighthaunt gets ward removal is massive. NH is ultimately a low-damage army, so removing wards is massive. Dreadscythes with Deserters create a highly mobile blob of wounds that has a lot of recursion and leaves combat at awkward times for your opponents. It is extremely hard to lift this unit. And there have been some games where they can pop some damage.

Banshees have a cute unbind, but really, I just want them to do something cool once per game. I can get them to 24 attacks (lightshard), 3s to hit (AOA or chainghasts), 3s to wound (maybe 2s if you bring a Guardian of Souls), -2 rend*, D3 damage, no wards. The rend on a target can be deceptive—you can give them griefstricken from Lady O to remove any positives to save, use fel blades to make them -1 save if you have some order-activation manipulation (see: crawler below), and suddenly it’s almost like your unit has -4 rend. Add that to 1) all of the shooting that adds up over time and 2) Dreadscythes that can get lucky and sometimes pump damage, and I can actually do respectable damage once per game. I point all of this out to demonstrate that NH has the potential for a serious go turn. My go turns in this GT resulted in the Banshees lifting: most of a unit of Cities cav (Banshees weren’t at full strength), Durthu, a Cogfort, and a Magmadroth. This might not seem like a lot, but a unit like Banshees trading up is just incredible for NH. If I can take out the threats to my Dreadscythes, I usually win games. The rest is kind of standard fare for NH. Pyregheists always seem to live longer than they should, and they always find ways to steal objectives. Chainghasts for +1 hit on 3+ is okay, probably better for this list than a Scriptor, but that decision was the last decision point of this list for me.

The spice of this list was the Mortek Crawler and Ossifector. The high potential for ranged damage and strike last was incredible in my practice games. It single-handedly won me games leading up to the GT. In the GT, it whiffed hard in every game except my last one. The threat of 24” shooting with strike last definitely messed with my opponents, but it was super inconsistent. Across 4 shooting phases in my one loss (2 with AOA, 2 with cover fire), it did a total of 6 damage. Dice be dicing! Overall, I had some super close games and had to really scrap/think plans through to pull out Ws. I’m not sure I love NH in its current state, but I had a great time at this GT!

Ossiarch Bonereapers
Remorseless Conquerors
General’s Handbook 2026-27
Drops: 3
Spell Lore – Lore of Ossian Sorcery
Manifestation Lore – Horrors of the Necropolis

Battle Tactic Cards: Siege of Ashes, Burning for Vengeance

General’s Regiment
Liege-Kavalos (200)
• General
• Soulweb Gem
• Imperious Will – (20) Points
Kavalos Deathriders (160)
Kavalos Deathriders (160)
Teratic Cohort (90)

Regiment 1
Mortisan Ossifector (110)
Immortis Guard (300)
• Reinforced
Mortek Crawler (250)
Mortis Reapers (110)

Regiment 2
Mortisan Soulmason (140)
Morghast Archai (480)
• Reinforced

Faction Terrain
Bone-tithe Nexus

Charles Belt: The latest battlescroll has been kind to our beloved collectors of tithes in the form of a change to the once oppressive Relentless Discipline battle trait, and some much needed point drops. (Relentless Discipline being the resource generated per battle round that allows you to use the bulk of your army’s abilities which previously carried a tax for reinforced units). So the real point of the list was to get reinforced units back out onto the table and see how they feel now that the faction has a meaningful ability to spread out and score points. That being said, we are running Siege and Burning for tactics and currently that combination feels very good. They allow you to have a dynamic tempo depending on the battleplan and matchup letting you score big early or hold off to take advantage of underdog mechanics if need be for a very forgiving playstyle. We are still running Remorseless Conquerors as its ability to guarantee at least a 4+ on all RUN abilities combos in a big way with Teratic Cohort and Mortis Reapers.

Moving on to units, we start with a lite version of the WEDGE package. The Liege-Kavalos bringing Soulweb Gem gives some RDP protection and allows him to be played more aggressively by allowing him to return to the battlefield once per game at the end of a turn in which he is destroyed. The Cohort continue to carry immense value and can absolutely flip a game if they find themselves in a good position for it due to their ability to move post deployment, as well as in every hero phase. One unit of Mortis Reapers is enough to create huge problems for your opponent as they are very difficult to catch, can threaten small heroes, and are just as good at scoring as they are at denying points with the ability to teleport around terrain and move at the end of every turn. Now we have the Immortis Guard/ Morghast Archai/ Mortek Crawler chunk of the army, along with the Soulmason, the idea is to create some decision paralysis. The Archai can give the Soulmason +1 to cast, which can stack with the +1 from Place of Power, giving you a reliable Strike-First on a Magical Intervention; which pairs nicely with the Ossifector helping the Crawler give out Strike-Last on a 3+ with a Covering Fire. Last but not least, we have the Bone-tithe Nexus to protect against deepstrike headaches and late game teleporting to objective shenanigans. Combining all of the above, you get the ability to create a large area of formidable units that need to be addressed, with limited points of attack, while the rest of the crew spreads the board and scores points, hopefully also pulling resources away from the attack on the center. All things considered the outlook for OBR going into the end of the year seems promising and exciting.

Final Tournament Placings